Bienvenue.

This blog is a very tiny window into my blogging life. A narrow, frosted window; the kind you usually see at the dentist's office to shield from view the impending torture slowly deviating toward your mouth.

Unfortunately, most of my blogging content is too personal to put up publicly, and I feel bad because 99.9% of the people I mention it to won't ever have access to it. So I made a public blog. It has resulted in the debacle that is this account - a superficial outpouring in humorously obscure, skewed ways.

Friday, April 24, 2009

EDMONTON — An armed robber shot himself dead outside a Mill Woods liquor store Thursday morning after shooting and killing a worker at a nearby spa.

Police say the man entered the Bella Tonic spa on Millbourne Road at about 10 a.m., pulled out a handgun and demanded money. When an employee confronted him, the man fired the weapon, fatally wounding the employee.

Minutes later, the man appeared again at a liquor store five blocks away, said spokesman Jeff Wuite. He robbed the store and left by the front door. When he saw police outside he apparently shot himself.

Amanda Gill, an employee at Bella Tonic, arrived for work at 11:30 and was shocked to find police tape.

“I just got back from a trip last night,” she said. “It’s a good thing I didn’t start at 10.”

Gill said the salon has been owned by Nina Bains and her husband for about the last six years. It’s a family business, she said, and Bains’s husband and son work inside.

“I’m just in shock right now,” she said.

Tamara, who used to work at Bella Tonic, identified a woman crying outside as Nina Bains. Tamara asked that her last name not be used.

In the aftermath of the first shooting, two nearby schools were locked down.

More than 400 students at St. Elizabeth Elementary and St. Hilda Junior High were kept inside for about half an hour as police raced to secure the scene.

Students at the school will be sent home with letters explaining what happened, said Catholic School Board spokeswoman Lori Nagy.

The lockdown started at about 10:30 a.m. and was over by 11 a.m., Nagy said.

Workers at a nearby day care also locked their doors after the shooting.

“We were terrified and my heart is still thumping,” said Indira Saroya, the co-owner of Shiva Day Care. “How many innocent people have to die? My heart goes out to the family.”

Saroya said the 40 children inside the day care didn’t understand what was happening.

After the shooting, an injured man left the spa and staggered into the Medicine Shoppe pharmacy next door, said Gusharan Buttar, who was at the scene. Hours later police were still inside that store.

At Millbourne Liquor five blocks away, a forensics unit was examining the scene at around 1 p.m.

A table sat propped up in front of the entrance, blocking the view of the body still lying out front.

A security guard inside the nearby Safeway said a woman ran into the store at about 10:15 a.m. and told him police needed them to lock their doors right away.

Tactical officers soon appeared in the parking lot outside, said Andy Zayat.

“You could see them running around with the guns drawn,” he said. “They looked sort of confused.”

Police have only identified the dead men as adult males.

Mayor Stephen Mandel said his thoughts go out to the family of the slain man.

"We have become a violent society. You don't change violence overnight. You change it by dealing with families, youth, kids, fetal-alcohol problems," said Mandel, who created a task force last September that's due to come up with a 10-year plan for community safety by June.

"It's a long-reaching solution — the challenge is to change the violent nature of society."

Hello, World.

“Love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't, and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said that it'd be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.”- Dr. Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy